MARISSA
The silence was thick between us as we nursed our drinks. Sitting at a small table right in the middle of the bar packed with people here for happy hour made the silence between us all the harder to take in without cringing or fidgeting.
I took my hair out of its ponytail and ran a hand through the strands, lightly massaging my scalp. After a day with my hair attached, it’s a bliss to get it down, quite literally. It’d be better if only Wyatt and I had something to talk about.
For someone who cornered me into agreeing to go for a drink, he was reticent. His dark eyes kept going back and forth between the patrons mingling around and me.
I glided my fingertips over the beer bottle in front of me and watched the droplets of water on the cold glass sliding down and coating the top of the small table.
“It took me a while to realize that my adoptive parents were here to stay,’’ Wyatt said out of the blue, his voice hoarse as if he’s reluctant to talk about this.
I stopped any movements, afraid that if I gazed at him, he would retract himself back into his hard shell. Because while I still didn’t like his guts much, I was curious about him. I had no idea what it’s like to be adopted so late in your life, to have gone through foster families for years. In one word, he intrigued me which wasn't in my best interest.
“You still don’t believe it much if you’re scared I’d take your place,’’ I said quietly, my voice softer than I had ever used it with him. I risked a glance his way and saw him shrug, eyes downcast on the beer bottle swallowed by his hand.
“It’s not rational, but… You’re her blood, Marissa. If you wanted, you could become a huge part of my mother’s life.’’
“But I don’t want that.’’ When his eyes landed on me with disbelief, I leaned closer to the table. “I don’t. I love my parents, my brother… I don’t need another family member.’’ I bit the inside of my mouth and shook my head. “I needed to know the circumstances leading to my abandonment, and I wanted to see if I look like my birth mother. That’s all, Wyatt.’’
He nodded, but now that I looked closely enough without the anger clouding my vision, I saw stressed lines around his eyes, saw rings under them too.
“I guess I still have abandonment issues,’’ he ruefully said and took a sip of his beer. I watched his throat work as he swallowed. “My biological parents fucked me good. My biological mother left when I was a toddler, and my biological father abandoned me when I was eight. After that, it’s the usual sob story when you’re in the system. I bounced from foster family to foster family until I got lucky and Lydia found me. But I was thirteen by then. I was an angry boy.’’
“You look still angry to me,’’ I blurted out without thinking and then braced myself for his harsh comeback, but nothing came. He nodded once and took another sip of his beer, but one look at his hand wrapped around his bottle and I knew he’s keeping himself in check. His knuckles were white from his tight grip around the neck of the bottle.
“You would too.’’ There’s a darkness in his voice that tugged at me, darkness I couldn’t grasp but I sensed. It’s always there in his eyes, in his gruff voice and harsh tone, but here I could see it stemmed from his past and not just his fear. There’s something inside of him, something I couldn’t comprehend but it’s doing a number on him. That’s when it hit me all the more how lucky I was to have been adopted as a baby, to have a family like mine. And it also became apparent how young and innocent I was about some aspects of life. Wyatt had matured early on and not in a healthy way. It had broken something in him.
Slowly, I brought a hand toward his still wrapped around the beer bottle. When he didn’t move away, I put mine over his. My palm and fingers looked so small over his, barely covering his fingers and the back of his hand. I glanced up at his face and found him already watching me with an intensity in his eyes that made me gasp and pull away. But he didn’t let me. His dark eyebrows lowered and he grabbed my hand, his long fingers holding my hand tightly to keep me there, connected to him. I felt his touch so deeply inside me it scared me.
Wyatt scared me.
He intrigued me more.
***
WYATT
Fuck, it hurt to open up. I hadn’t spilled any of my big bad memories to her, but talking about my past was enough to bring out enough bad shit to make me lose sleep for the next few nights.
I was used to it now. Since she’d walked in my life, I’d been sleeping for shit.
But with her small hand in mine? I wasn’t going to say it’s worth it, but it’s enough to make me want her more. Even now, I was at half-mast under the table, and the warmth from her hand was a direct link to my cock, inflating it more and more as seconds passed.
Marissa was a hot woman. She looked the part for a perfect one-night stand, but for some reason, I doubted she’s the one-night stand material. It’s fucked up anyway.
I couldn’t sleep with my adoptive mother’s biological daughter. I didn’t want to have to see her again another time once it’s all said and done. My cock needed to realize that though before I made a move and she went back to hating my guts.
“We’re never going to be friends. I know that,’’ she said quietly, her musical voice so soft and sexy when low like this that it’s hard for me not to grab her face, pull her toward me and taste her lips. Shit, it’d be so damn easy, and everything else would take a back seat for a little while. “But I want you to know that we’re good. We may see each other again one day, you never know, and while I still think you’re an asshole, I suppose I understand where you come from.’’
“Why shouldn’t we be friends?’’ I asked, but I knew it already. I wasn’t the kind of guy you pick to be friends with, not when all I’d shown her was my short temper and anger.
“Are you for real?’’ She tugged on her hand still in mine, and I reluctantly let her go. She sat straighter and eyed me expectantly as if waiting for me to laugh it off or some shit like that. Instead, I bore my eyes into hers and willed her to feel this thing. It’s like a wire current humming through my damn veins. She couldn't ignore it.
“Do I look like a guy joking around?’’
She pursed her lips and looked away, but kept on glancing at me in the corner of her eye. “You can’t stand me, Wyatt.’’
I could stand you if it involved you and me without any clothes on, I thought, and I knew I was smiling, but I didn’t give her the time to question me. “Let’s try this friendship thing. We’ll see how it goes.’’
“Listen—''
I shook my head and stopped her with a hand held up between us. “Give it some thought. I’ll get your phone number from Ralph, and I’ll call you in a few days and see where we stand. You’re the one calling the shots.’’
“Since I’ve met you, it didn’t feel that way.’’
I smirked at her, the kind of lip twitching higher on one side that had women usually melt for me and I stood up. She tipped her head upward to look at me, and it bared her throat, drawing my attention there and lower to the swell of her breasts under her skin-tight t-shirt with InkSpired written in white block letters. Possibilities of what I could do to these perfect tits distracted me from the matter at hands, but when her frown deepened it brought me back to the present.
“I like holding the reins, babe, but I don’t mind giving up control once in a while.’’
With that, I turned around and walked away, gritting my teeth while my hard cock pushed against the restraint of my jeans.
I didn’t know how long I could ignore what my other head told me to do when I was with Marissa. Of course, I could always call some chicks I didn’t care to get laid and solve my current problem, but I wouldn’t. It’d be too fucking easy, and somehow right now I didn’t want easy.
Once Marissa Thornton was out of my system things would get back to normal.
At this point, I had no doubt.
I was going to fuck her, and in doing so, I’d probably fuck her over. She’d hate me more than she already did and she’d steer clear of my family.
It'd be okay even if I’d hate myself for hurting a girl like her, but it’s who I was.
I hurt people.
Just like my biological father.